Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times writes of American composer Richard Danielpour's opera Margaret Garner (2005), "Mr. Danielpour’s undeniable craft comes through in almost every passage. He can write lyrically ruminative vocal lines and knows how to energize choristers, as in an animated ensemble of slaves awaiting auction, where the words “No, no more!” become a theme for a syncopated, patter-filled, fuguelike chorus. The orchestral writing is flecked with color and richly sonorous". Hear Gregg Baker and Denyce Graves of the Opera Company of Philadelphia sing an excerpt from Margaret Garner . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

One of the 20th-century's great symphonists, Witold Lutoslawski created an impressive, always progressing body of music in the most difficult of circumstances. As the commander of a military radio station, he was captured by the invading Germans at the beginning of World War II. He escaped, and survived the occupation by playing piano duos in Warsaw cafes, including his Variations on a Theme of Paganini. In 1949 his Symphony No. 1 was the first Polish work to be denounced as formalist by Stalinist cultural politicians. In reaction, Lutoslawski wrote public works based on folk material, while continuing to develop a more personal language privately. In the cultural thaw following Stalin's death, Lutoslawski became a major international figure, renowned for innovations in form and performing techniques and a consistently eloquent personal voice - (from the Los Angeles Philharmonic). Hear Lutoslawski speak of his life and his music in an interview with Charles Amirkhanian . . . this week's COMPOSER PORTRAIT.

Composer Karen Amrhein has now completed her project of creating an animated film based on her 2007 work "Princess Paliné, who learned the seven words that stay a dragon's hunger and cool its fires". According to the composer, "The 28-minute animated film (with musical score and narration) ... engaged much of my time over the past year and a half. Having almost no experience with film-making – and none with animation – before beginning this, I’ve learned a great deal. I created the animation by employing time-tested stop-motion techniques to altered images from old fruit and vegetable crate labels, medieval illuminations, and bits from scans of paintings by the masters. Preview audiences have been left in stunned silence by the results". Watch an excerpt from this beautiful and timeless film . . . the second of our FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS for the week.

Erik Satie's Nocturnes are some of the last compositions he wrote for piano. Their harmonies rely on fourths and fifths and each shows a characteristic simplicity of texture. By this stage of his life, Satie's compositional technique had altered somewhat and the Nocturnes, like most of his works from the 1890s onwards, are made up of juxtaposed fragments of themes. Listen to and watch a unique performance of the Nocturne No. 2 (1919) . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music

Noel Goodwin of The Times writes of Witold Lutoslawski' s Chain 1 (1983), "Lutoslawski devised a form where ideas are chain-linked in separate strands and cohere with exuberant wit and variety. Much of its character is governed by the separate instruments and their players, exploited in a way that demonstrates the breath of their individual skill". Watch a performance with the composer conducting the London Sinfonietta . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Barbara Harbach has a large catalog of works, including symphonies, works for chamber ensemble, string orchestra, organ, harpsichord and piano, as well as musicals, choral anthems, film scores, and her recently premiered opera O Pioneers! (2008-2009). She's also involved in the research, editing, publication and recording of manuscripts of eighteenth-century keyboard composers, and historical and contemporary women composers. In the words of Bob Briggs (MusicWeb International), "one of the most appealing things about Harbach’s music is her very American-ness. Her music speaks of wide open places, the prairie, homespun Americana. If you haven’t yet experienced the beautiful Harbach voice then I urge you to listen." Check out and hear samplings of Harbach's music with this week's FEATURED RECORDING - The Music of Barbara Harbach, Vol. 4 – Chamber Music

"William Walton set to [work on the film score for Henry V (1944)], but when it came to setting the Battle of Agincourt he found the going hard. The original plan was to have the music written first and then fit the acting round it, but, in the event, Walton had to write to fit the film. 'Henry V is being more of a bloody nuisance than it is possible to believe,' he told a friend. 'I am by way of recording it on 21 May, but doubt I'm ready. Ten minutes of charging horses, bows and arrows. How does one distinguish between a crossbow and a longbow, musically speaking?' His solution to this and other problems was clever, weaving everything from 13th-century French songs and the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book to Canteloube's Chants d'Auvergne into an exultant sequence of musical tableaux that Laurence Olivier described as 'fantastic', and wondered: 'Why it didn't win every award throughout the film industry, I'll never know, because it's the most wonderful score I've ever heard for a film. In fact, for me the music actually made the film; otherwise it would have been a nightmare." (Micheal Church, The Independent) Watch an excerpt from Henry V (1944) with music by William Walton . . . this week's PYTHEAS SIGHTING.

When George Gershwin was commissioned to compose a piano concerto by Walter Damrosch of the New York Symphony Orchestra, he was very much aware of his lack of formal training. Eventually he would take some lessons in harmony and counterpoint from such well known figures as Henry Cowell and Wallingford Riegger. He would apply to Maurice Ravel, who declined with the flattering remark, "Why would you want to risk being a second-rate Ravel when you are already a first-rate Gershwin?" He even had some lessons from Arnold Schoenberg, with whom he also played tennis, but when they discussed their respective incomes Schoenberg told him, "I should be taking lessons from you!" Gershwin undertook the Concerto in F (1925), however, before he got to the point of seeking instruction. Upon accepting Damrosch's commission he bought himself some books on musical forms and on orchestration, and he taught himself as he composed the work. The premiere, at the end of 1925, was his first appearance on a symphony program as either performer or composer; Damrosch himself provided a note on the new work: "Various composers have been walking around jazz like a cat around a plate of soup, waiting for it to cool off so that they could enjoy it without burning their tongues, hitherto accustomed only to the more tepid liquids distilled by cooks of the classical school. Lady Jazz . . . has danced her way around the world . . . but for all her travels and sweeping popularity, she has encountered no knight who could lift her to a level that would enable her to be received as a respectable member of musical circles. George Gershwin seems to have accomplished this miracle . . . boldly by dressing his extremely independent and up-to-date young lady in the classic garb of a concerto. . . . He is the Prince who has taken Cinderella by the hand and openly proclaimed her a princess to the astonished world, no doubt to the fury of her envious sisters." Watch the wildly inventive Oscar Levant perform (in multiple roles) the last movement of the Concerto in F from the film An American in Paris . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music

Tōru Takemitsu's Rain Tree Sketch II (1992) is our featured New Music Video this week. Caleb Deupree at his blog Classical-Drone has some thoughts on the piece: "Takemitsu's last major piano work was Rain Tree Sketch II, a memorial for one of his great influences, the French composer Olivier Messiaen. The work was the last in a series of memorial pieces, a set which included orchestral works for composer Morton Feldman and film director Andrei Tarkovsky and solo pieces for composer Witold Lutoslawski and sculptor Isamu Noguchi. Takemitsu had returned to a 'sea of tonality' (his phrase) in the 1980s, and Rain Tree Sketch II centers on a D minor chord (but without any of the directional aspects of nineteenth-century tonality, as far as I can tell anyway). Interestingly, at important moments the D minor chord is arpeggiated and accompanied with high overtones, which sound to me like a gamelan. I am grateful for the jewels that he wrote for piano, and these are well represented on recordings."

NOISE is our FEATURED NEW MUSIC ENSEMBLE. "NOISE is an ensemble of accomplished soloists with a deep commitment to chamber music. NOISE presents concerts that are energetic and engaging as well as intellectually stimulating and technically sophisticated. They believe that music which is sometimes called complex, difficult, or avant-garde is accessible to any audience when performed with passion and conviction." Check them out online, and, if you're in California this week, see them at the soundON Festival of Modern Music taking place in La Jolla, California, June 18-20, 2009.

A facinating read is this week's Featured Thought & Idea ... 2001: A Space Odyssey - Alex North's Unused Soundtrack. And check out the special feature of the opening scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey with the classic soundtrack replaced with Alex North's original, but discarded, score [sorry, no longer available]...

This week FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES brings us classically trained ballet dancer Sylvie Guillem. Her most notable performances have included Giselle and Rudolf Nureyev's stagings of Swan Lake and Don Quixote. As of late she has moved from ballet to contemporary dance, working with performers such as Akram Khan as an Associate Artist of the Sadler's Wells Theatre in London. Here she is featured in Wet Woman with choreography by Mats Ek and music by the Swedish group Fläskkvartetten (Fleshquartet) ...

Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst